


Lateralus

by RisingEmpress



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hellraiser (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Horror, Amputation, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Can I create a "referenced amputation" tag, Cannibalism, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dimension Travel, Emotional Manipulation, Hannibal Lecter Being Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Immortality, M/M, Medical Torture, Mindfuck, Sadism, Someone Help Will Graham, Supernatural Elements, Watch out for Hellraiser quotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:40:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23031868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingEmpress/pseuds/RisingEmpress
Summary: “Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven.”Hannibal doesn’t speak, but Will can hear the words in an amorous whisper, a warning full of tender devotion. It’s a vile thing to be loved during your demise.Will Graham's psychiatrist isn't only unconventional in a homicidal and cannibalistic sense, but seems to be entirely otherworldly.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38





	1. The Box

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I took my favorite bits from the Hellraiser movies and mashed 'em up with my favorite show! If you're not familiar with the franchise all I can offer you is.....  
> Pain has a face, allow me to show it to you.  
> No but seriously, enjoy the mystery and awfulness. I'll be updating this on a random schedule because I can't stick to one, and I'll update the tags accordingly. Have fun!

The puzzle box was according to Will’s knowledge a rare collector’s item his father had left behind after his passing. Once or twice he’d been ordered not to touch it, not even look at it, and Will had obliged. His father’s possessions were his business, right up until they all landed in Will’s lap. He’d storaged some of it, gifted books and clothes to charity, not wanting to be reminded of the loss he’d gotten everything out of sight except for some fishing gear and tools, and the peculiar golden box.

It was beautiful. Complex patterns across the entire cube, telling a story Will was craving to hear. It was undoubtedly over a century old and worth a fortune, but that’s about as much as Will knew.

The presence of the box had led to Will’s nights being plagued by terrors. Behind closed eyes the Ripper’s every murder was presented in vivid, grotesque detail. Intestines replaced with colorful flowers, blooming as a live garden where a beating heart should be. Thick, sharp antlers piercing skin and popping lungs.

Stolen organs. The taste of death at a dinner table. Hannibal’s hand on Will’s shoulder, voice low and smooth as liquid as Hannibal whispers to him, pouring tender commands and devilish promises down his ear.

_I have such sights to show you._

The dreams were stretched past the rise of the sun, molding into Will’s waking life. As if clarity on the Ripper case wasn’t quite enough, he was losing grip on the vile reality he’d come to know. Hannibal was eager as always to watch him spiral, and the intensity in his curiosity was exceptional. If not mildly suspicious.

~

“How did it come into your possession?”

Will pays notice to Hannibal’s curiosity; all but professional and deeply profound. It’s the same curiosity that allows Will to slip unscathed through Hannibal’s expectations and code of conduct. An elegant man, a narcissist, powerful in his line of work and social circles.

Inexplicably wicked.

It doesn’t matter how well Hannibal thinks he’s mastered the art of hiding his intentions. Will sees clearly through the carefully constructed mask. He’s sitting across from the Chesapeake Ripper, and he doesn’t mind it. Not anymore. He feels as safe as ever in his office.

Hannibal can sense Will is slipping, madness taking over him and seeping in as poison. He grows desperate to keep Will’s attention; leaning forward in his chair in hopes it will bring Will’s eyes to meet his own. It doesn’t.

“It was passed down through generations.” Will finally says, the hairs on his neck rising as he reflects on the puzzle box. Golden and sincerely sinister. A curse he was born into. A temptation matchless in its cruelty.

“What did you do with it?” Hannibal asks, voice low and wary. Letting his patient find his own way.

Will flashes a bitter smile, looking up to meet Hannibal’s eyes for a mere second. “Nothing,” he says, distracting himself by following the miniscule patterns of the leather armchair with a fingertip.

Hannibal wants to shake him. Awaken him. Terrorize, if necessary. But he settles on leaning back again, one brow twitching upwards in disbelief. “Didn’t you?”

“It came to me,” Will continues, letting out a sigh that’s filled with pain and the threat of tears. He swallows everything down, intent on not falling apart. Not here, not now. Not in front of Hannibal. “In my dreams. It was as if… my blood was speaking to me while I slept.”

Tongue pressed against teeth. Heat spreading across his chest. Hannibal inches forward again. “What did it say?”

“Succumb.”

~

Hannibal had an apt for the obscure. He was a collector; gatherer of rare books, live plants from foreign countries and art that had been deemed sinful. Even down to the coffee beans he grinded every morning, they were certainly exceptional. So naturally, Will brings the puzzle box for their next therapy session.

“Nietzsche spoke of divine forgiveness as if suffering was the coin of the realm,” Hannibal says when Will initiates their session by swallowing down two or three painkillers. “At least in the economy of salvation. An eye for an eye. And suffer infinitely given the measurlessness of the offence.”

Will can’t refrain from laughing, although it’s anything but joyful. “It’s not divine forgiveness that I’m after, Dr. Lecter.”

His voice is uneven, hands twitching in obvious distress as he refuses to sit when Hannibal does. They don’t discuss what offence Will is guilty of; it’s painfully evident. Murder. Acceptance. Desire. 

Hannibal purses his lips, crossing his legs and looking blankly off in the distance. Will knows with every fiber of his being Hannibal would give anything to receive anything. An insight to his object of curiosity. What Will struggles to decipher is what Hannibal’s reaction may be to the puzzle box itself.

It wasn’t surprising that Hannibal had taken such an interest in it. With the stories Will had told —which made him sound delusional— of centuries of evil. Madness he wouldn’t steep low enough to believe had he not seen it. Or rather felt it, dreamt it. Heard it whispered to him at night.

It only enticed Hannibal even more seeing how it was affecting Will. He hadn’t had a peaceful night in weeks. Perhaps months. He seemed to be in a constant state of terror.

“What are you after?” Hannibal tilts his head curiously, watching as Will digs through his bag with eager hands.

“Relief.”

Will turns back to Hannibal golden box in hand. Will can detect the hint of a smile across the doctor’s face, and it sends a deeply unsettling feeling to coil in his stomach. Hannibal’s lips part, tongue light as a feather across his lower lip.

“You have a debt to pay.”

Will scoffs, unhinged enough not to think twice of Hannibal’s reaction or choice of words. At this moment all he can see is a collector, spotting a rare item in hands desperate for his expertise.

“So do you,” Will says, finally sitting down across from the Chesapeake Ripper. The box weighs heavy in his palm, the distinct golden patterns across the cube threatening him to touch; to tweak the corners or run his fingers along the cracks.

He doesn’t dare.

“I want you to open it.”

Will glares at Hannibal as if he’s the one who’s gone insane. Clearly he must have.

“Your curiosity knows no bounds, Dr. Lecter.”

Hannibal smiles, although not wholeheartedly. There’s an eagerness behind it. “Neither does your fear,” he says, shifting slightly in his seat and turning his head to look out the window. “If it’s truly relief you’re after I can’t imagine any other way. It pains me to see you in this agony, Will.”

Will watches Hannibal intently, unsure of his sincerity. Unsure of everything.

Hannibal’s gaze returns to the box, and then to Will. Hunger presents as a glimmer in his eye, longing as a ache in his chest. “Why don’t you clear your conscience?”

~

It’s searing. The sizzling burn of flame against flesh. It’s unusual. Slow.

Hannibal is focused, but Will is louder than the blowtorch. It’s a match of ferocity, and Will thrashes as a wild beast caught in a trap.

He is.

Locked away in Hannibal’s ivory tower, hidden from the world where his screams only echoes off walls and never meeting the surface of the earth. He’ll never breathe fresh air. Never breathe at all unless Hannibal allows it.

He melts as a popsicle on a warm day. It reeks. The numbness climbs up his arm, taking his shoulder in excruciating heat, but the flame only grazes his knuckles.

There’s no telling how many fingers remain attached. There’s no point in knowing. They’ll all burn.


	2. The Surgeon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Under the skin massage."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this is some spicy (deliciously terrible) stuff! I apologize if it's too trippy to follow, I got all kinds of wrapped up in this. I hope it's an enjoyable mess, and thank you for reading!

Will runs his fingers along the patterns of the golden cube, shame hitting him as a hot wave over the fact he was afraid of what it might do. It had already caused him such horror, just being in its presence. Hannibal’s suggestions were dangerously tempting.

Hannibal sits silently for a minute before speaking, tapping a finger against his knuckles. Impatient. “Human acquiescence is as easily obtained by terror as by temptation.”

Will scoffs, although a smile tugs at his lips. A chill runs down his back. For a long time, he had lived with the knowledge he was the Chesapeake Ripper’s favorite activity. From the moment they first met he’d been subjected to everything that attention and devotion may entail. Manipulation, deceit, smothering obsession. It was comforting.

Will had opened the box. Not only as a result of Hannibal’s influence but rather to end it all. The dreams, the fear. Not knowing.

Now he knew.

Metal hooks had swung, commanded by no one and everything to tear the skin from his body until he was unrecognizable as human. He had been sitting across from Hannibal Lecter, watching him exceed into unmistakable arousal as their world crumbled and Will’s spine was clutched by a hook before ripped out with a sickening crack.

Even in death, Will looked to Hannibal for answers.

“Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven.”

Hannibal doesn’t speak, but Will can hear the words in an amorous whisper, a warning full of tender devotion. It’s a vile thing to be loved during your demise.

Cracks in the ceiling, running down the dark walls of Hannibal’s office as lightning bolts, tearing up the wooden floors until the two of them are falling, together for all eternity.

~

The cutting is a familiar sensation. It is not heartbreaking, not overwhelming or excruciating, only enough to edge him closer to a panic attack. The blade slicing away at the skin on his back is a blessing compared to what would inevitably come next, and Will’s entire chest seizes in foreboding terror.

The world around them may have changed, but Hannibal’s ferocity hadn’t. Now pain for pain’s sake was on the agenda; being torn to shreds only to be stitched back together again. A walking, talking piece of flesh.

Once focused on digging his fingers into Will’s brain only to swirl them around, rearrange him entirely, Hannibal could now do so without repercussions. Quite literally, Will’s body was a sadistic surgeon’s playground, and it was all in the name of excruciating fascination.

“Under the skin massage.” 

The skin is carefully peeled away with surgical precision, leaving exposed muscles and bone to shiver by the torment of mere air. Will doesn’t scream, doesn’t beg or cry. Not yet. He closes his eyes and attempts to retreat, only to coax the voice of his surgeon to penetrate through his ears in a demand he stays present.

“Interior tension is not a pain I’d have you endure,” Hannial explains almost humorously, keeping out of Will’s line of vision. Possibly to admire his artwork. “Not when there’s far more fascinating sensations you’re worthy of, my little lamb.”

Will can’t listen. Doesn’t want to be worthy of being sacrificial unless it meant a true death. Not one his demon could bring him back from.

They weren’t a part of the earth anymore, Will was aware of that. The puzzle box had opened a portal, to wherever exactly he couldn’t say, he could only describe it as hell. Perhaps his own personal one. Or Hannibal’s. Even if they were already dead Hannibal seemed right at home, eager as always to rebuild him from their fall.

He’d stitched Will’s limbs back in place, polished him with complete devotion until he was whole again, not even bearing a single proof of what happened. Not a scar on his body.

Hannibal had smiled at that, kissed him through shock and recovery, cherished him, until sinking his teeth into Will’s tongue and pulling until it disconnected from the back of his throat and ate it.

He’s brought back by the disapproving clicking of Hannibal’s tongue. “Not feeling very chatty today, Will?”

“No.”

Will could only amuse himself thinking that Hannibal wasn’t just carrying the secret identity of the Chesapeake Ripper, a monster roaming the earth, but in addition he was an explorer of another dimension entirely. Will wondered briefly if it was sheer luck or careful planning that the puzzle box ended up in Will’s possession to begin with.

“I sincerely hope this will release some unwanted tension.” Hannibal barely mutters before sliding fingers between bone and flesh, clenching fists around muscles and tendons, and Will finally screams.

“Loosen that tongue.”

~

Hell is unfinished business. It’s the constant demand of retribution; all the different morbid faces of the Ripper’s victims whose deaths remain a mystery to the earth above while Will has the perpetrator within arms reach.

A demand for justice, while Will mourns the concept.

He sees Cassie Boyle robbed of her lungs. Georgia Madchen consumed by fire. Abigail’s neck sliced open, and Beverly Katz sawed into pieces. What was more painful than their deaths was how small and trivial they had become in the midst of Hannibal’s never-ending dance. Collateral damage.

Was it the pain that made compassion wither away, or had he ever been as concerned with the victims as he was with the Ripper himself? Had he waited, shotgun in hand for the fox to enter the henhouse or did he admire its ferocity? He closes his eyes to envision the bloodbath and hears the fox whisper.

_You wouldn’t be here had you pulled the trigger._

If he had pulled the trigger he would be somewhere much worse, he thinks. Alone. The thought of Hannibal’s death was as much a sedative as it was an aphrodisiac and simply terrifying.

Will makes the conscious decision not to believe something as simple as masochism or Stockholm syndrome could be the only explanation as to why he’s longingly awaiting Hannibal’s return. It would probably be weeks. Perhaps a month or two of visions of murders, sad faces begging him to find their killer, or the screams of how he’s just as corrupt as the Ripper himself.

Hannibal likes to let him heal. As if he’s doing Will a kindness by allowing this place to do what it does best rather than torture him again. It’s not like Will expects the pain to end anyway, but he supposes Hannibal wouldn’t want to leave his mind intact as he presumably returned to the normal world.

It was according to Will an inescapable fact that physical suffering seemed uncomplicated and manageable in comparison to the psychological.

Will stares at his severed feet on the floor beside him and prays for death, for the horrible shame of feeling so treasured.

~

“How are we feeling today?”

Will is sitting where he died. Or at least that’s what he presumes. Where he’s been resurrected, destroyed and thoroughly twisted and bent to Hannibal’s satisfaction. He’s so certain it couldn’t all have been a dream, yet nothing seems to have changed. Hannibal still offered therapy, he’s still discovering bodies with the feds and there’s no scars, no burn marks. Not a single palpable reminder or piece of evidence.

He stares thoughtlessly to the cabinet behind Hannibal’s chair, thinking back to how the glass cracked before exploding in a million pieces before they were both falling. “Capricious,” he swallows dryly. “Distant.”

Hannibal nods, paying notice to how his patient across from him keeps brushing his fingers over his knuckles, in between his fingers and up to his wrist. Searching for a different texture.

“You’re still haunted by bad dreams.”

“No,” Will releases a breath and nearly smiles, head pulsating with fury, every limb itching for freedom. “Not bad dreams.”

The puzzle box is burning a hole in Hannibal’s pocket, weighing heavy against his chest. Almost as a pitiful symbol of guilt. “What haunts you, Will?”

“Blood. Warm and.. foreign. Washing over me. Air.” Will smiles sadly, shooting a brief glance to Hannibal before looking down. “The Chesapeake Ripper.”

The bloodbath hadn’t been an easy clean up, nor Will’s recovery. He’d resurfaced the earth a mangled mess of bone and exposed nerves and muscles, incomplete and starved. And as many times before, Hannibal had made sacrifices to rebuild him again. His chest stings.

“The Ripper has given you purpose in this life,” Hannibal mutters, watching intently as his beloved creation tears himself free from stitches and chains.

“You gave me purpose,” Will hisses and leans forward. “In another life.”

They sit silently for a minute, stewing in unbearable pressure before Hannibal dares to speak. “Recall for me.”

Will leans back again, attempting to envision his mind and memories as less of a swirling grey mess and more concrete. He can only feel. Sharp teeth skinning him alive, organs caressed and the phantom pain of a lost limb. He closes his eyes. “Whatever you did to me, wherever you brought me, you were there with me. Even when you weren’t.”

“Recall for me,” Hannibal repeats warily. His fingers itch. His heart beats steadily against the box.

“It was the sense of déjà vu. The pain, it was a comfort,” Will takes a sharp breath, stammering his way through. “Death wasn’t a concern, murder, even morals-” he rubs at his eyes before opening them to stare at the dark floor. “I suppose that’s the value it holds.”

Hannibal tilts his head. “It?”

“Pain.”


End file.
